Stony ground

Brought up as a child in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall, I did not recognise it as part of history. We frequently walked, or rode our ponies, along its frontier, often sheltering in the lee of one of the forts or milecastles, with only a blackface tup and a couple of smelly ewes for company. The Roman wall is a masterpiece of engineering, built by man almost 2,000 years ago and, at 84 miles, a frontier that crosses England from sea to sea. Views from the wall are stunning - look north and you can see the Simonside hills and beyond them, the Cheviots. To the south the Pennines hump on the horizon, and on a clear day you can see Skiddaw and Lake District summits.

The Hadrian's Wall National Trail opened in May 2003. Visitors can take a week-long holiday to complete the whole trail on foot or enjoy a choice of short walks suitable for people of all abilities, with disabled access to many stretches of the wall. Well, some 400,000 people have tramped this National Trail since it was opened and, alas, this historic site is being so eroded by their boots, their bottles and their bric-a-brac that it has had to be placed on Unesco's list of endangered World Heritage Sites. Archaeological structures have been exposed and I have seen for myself how the wall is suffering from too many visitors' heavy boots. Vegetation around the wall is deteriorating, and in some areas part of the stonework is collapsing. The Roman wall was not built to take all these visitors. It was built by Emperor Hadrian in AD122 for economic and military purposes and protected only by sentry guards. Now, protection from the public is having to be seriously considered.